Princess wine policy

[Astro Flyer]

Glad it was resolved. Princess needs to have consistent written procedures to address issues such as this.

And to also clarify in their fine print what they said on their Facebook page about being able to bring wine on from ports by either paying the $15 corkage fee to drink onboard or to have them hold bottles of wine without a fee if we want to bring them home.

 

Their written policy is too vague & it doesn't cover the b2b or wine from port scenarios...poorly written regulations results in too much confusion. Clarifying this on Facebook or with a reply from Customer Relations does not inform crew or passengers about how they say it should be handled.

 

Come on Princess...clearly spell out these procedures in your terms so all passengers know them & to educate your crew about the correct procedure! :rolleyes:

[janetz]

Deleted...

Edited February 23, 2015 by janetz

[janetz]

Hi Astro! :)

 

One thing that surprised me in October was that if you are sailing and bringing on BVE quests, they are allowed to bring on one bottle of wine.

 

They in turn can leave it with those sailing.

 

This was told to me by Princess when I booked the BVE for my daughter.

 

We had two more bottles of wine when they left the ship. ;)

Edited February 23, 2015 by janetz

[IECalCruiser]

And to also clarify in their fine print what they said on their Facebook page about being able to bring wine on from ports by either paying the $15 corkage fee to drink onboard or to have them hold bottles of wine without a fee if we want to bring them home.

 

Their written policy is too vague & it doesn't cover the b2b or wine from port scenarios...poorly written regulations results in too much confusion. Clarifying this on Facebook or with a reply from Customer Relations does not inform crew or passengers about how they say it should be handled.

 

Come on Princess...clearly spell out these procedures in your terms so all passengers know them & to educate your crew about the correct procedure! :rolleyes:

Frank, I have rethought my comment and maybe we shouldn't have it all written out. On a coastal to Catalina and Enssenada last year, they allowed an additional bottle per person to be brought on board without corkage. This was confirmed at the Passenger Services Desk.

[Astro Flyer]

Frank, I have rethought my comment and maybe we shouldn't have it all written out. On a coastal to Catalina and Enssenada last year, they allowed an additional bottle per person to be brought on board without corkage. This was confirmed at the Passenger Services Desk.

 

Brian that's interesting & lucky for you. ;)

 

I would prefer that they clarify the procedure in their Passage Contract to reflect things Princess says but not all scenarios are clearly covered in the contract. All I ask is to clearly tell us the complete procedure & to educate their crew to have standardization without so much "grey" area subject to different interpretations about what to do.

 

Just clearly explain the complete wine procedure so I can follow their procedures & to eliminate any confusion & inconsistencies for passengers & staff.

[Colo Cruiser]

CNC glad it was fixed.

Edited February 23, 2015 by Colo Cruiser

[Disney Dog]

Does anyone know if you can carry on sodas & water?

[capriccio]

Does anyone know if you can carry on sodas & water?

 

Yes you can - no limits.

[IECalCruiser]

Brian that's interesting & lucky for you. ;)

 

I would prefer that they clarify the procedure in their Passage Contract to reflect things Princess says but not all scenarios are clearly covered in the contract. All I ask is to clearly tell us the complete procedure & to educate their crew to have standardization without so much "grey" area subject to different interpretations about what to do.

 

Just clearly explain the complete wine procedure so I can follow their procedures & to eliminate any confusion & inconsistencies for passengers & staff.

I wouldn't want them to start enforcing the new wine policy in Europe as the are currently doing in North America,

[CruiserNorCal]

On our current Emerald Princess cruise - You can in fact bring wine on at visiting ports and take it to your cabin.... No corkage fee unless you take it to the dinning room.

 

The alcohol collection table was set up at disembarking area for each port visit. I asked and confirmed, YOU CAN bring wine on from port and take it to your cabin. They just collect beer and hard lacquer. To test the process I bought a bottle of wine at port, put it in my backpack and boarded the ship. They sent my backpack through X-ray and said nothing. I hope this remains a consistent Princess policy. Best bet, ask at the alcohol collection table on your particular cruise to avoid disappointment / inconvenience.

[Loucat]

Funny how they will enforce the wine/alcohol policy but don't enforce any other rules, like the pool lounge chairs, the dress code, etc.

Oh, I get it.....the liquor policy involves $$. :):)

 

It is about money! They make money on alcohol. They do not make money on pool chairs or dress codes.

[Loucat]

As nice as they were to us for our entire voyage, I am shocked that they would not just hold it to the end or charge the corkage fee. Seems like they would not care enough to be hateful to just flat out destroy it.

 

It would seem silly to destroy a bottle of good wine. I am sure there was some use made of it.

[Z0nker]

The Passage Contract, which you must accept does state "...any alcohol found in violation of the one bottle policy will be removed and discarded." I have only seen one or maybe two reports of that occurring and that was in Australia. The typical procedure is to have additional bottles found in checked luggage charged the $15 corkage. In your friends case there would have been no corkage because there were two bottles and two passengers of drinking age. It is one bottle per passenger of drinking age, not two per cabin if you are sailing as a solo. It is unclear if three bottles are allowed if there are three or more adults sharing a cabin.

 

I have an issue with Princess because the terms of the Passage Contract supersede anything written on boarding passes or luggage tags and the crew are within their rights to remove alcohol and discard it. I believe this phrase was intend to apply to alcohol other than wine but it has been applied to wine. If I was bringing expensive wine on board it would be in my carryon.

 

I'm concerned about some of the ambiguity here as well. We don't have our luggage tags yet, but the FAQs at princess.com clearly state that you can more than two bottles of wine from home, just expect to pay corkage. No worries there, my DW is in the wine business and has accumulated an outstanding collection at prices far, far below retail. Adding $15 corkage still has us drinking and sharing excellent wine at a comparative bargain. My concern is that the passage contract indicates two bottles only and I don't want to get off the shuttle at the cruise terminal with something I can't bring on board. Has anyone had issues bringing aboard more than two bottles of wine?

[rdcruisin]

I have brought on more than the allotted two per cabin and before boarding the ship they checked and charged for the overage. They also marked the bottles so you could take them to the MDR or specialty restaurants and will not be charged another corkage fee. But there will be two they will not mark, so be sure to drink those in your cabin to avoid the corkage fee. Just be sure to carry your wine on -- do not place them in your checked luggage.

[elliair]

 

I advised him to go to the Service desk and complain.

 

Won't do any good since the policy is clear on Princess website pertaining to the wine policy. It's also written about extensively here on CC. While it may have gone too far in some people's thinking, this is what happens when "rules" aren't followed. Sometimes there's not even the crew checking wine at embarkation. BTW, it's doubtful the wine was destroyed, I think it was enjoyed by some of the crew members.

[XBGuy]

I'm concerned about some of the ambiguity here as well. We don't have our luggage tags yet, but the FAQs at princess.com clearly state that you can more than two bottles of wine from home, just expect to pay corkage. No worries there, my DW is in the wine business and has accumulated an outstanding collection at prices far, far below retail. Adding $15 corkage still has us drinking and sharing excellent wine at a comparative bargain. My concern is that the passage contract indicates two bottles only and I don't want to get off the shuttle at the cruise terminal with something I can't bring on board. Has anyone had issues bringing aboard more than two bottles of wine?

 

Rdcruisin has provided a pretty comprehensive response to your concern Z0nker. I just want to add a bit of clarification if you are sailing out of San Pedro or San Francisco. At both these ports the security people are very familiar with passengers carrying wine for their personal use on the cruise. When you go through the security scanner, the wine will, obviously, be observed. Every time I have brought my own wine--last five or six cruises--when I picked up whatever bag/case contained the wine off the scanner a security person would direct me to a table where one or two Princess people would count the number of bottles and prepare a chit for the $15/bottle corkage fee for the excess over the one per adult allowed at no charge. At your direction they also attach the stickers to the bottles for which the corkage fee has been paid.

 

It has consistently been very easy and very smooth for me.

[memoak]

I have taken up to a full case of wine on Princess for long cruises. Never had a problem - carry them on in 6 bottle carrying cases.

[Z0nker]

Thanks, XBGuy. Good to hear it from someone who's done it.

[satxdiver]

We have six bottle and 3 bottle wine carriers that we use to carry on wine. Most of the time we are directed to the alcohol table where they count the bottles and charge us the corking fee for every bottle above the allowed two (2 adults). Many times they just give us the stickers to put on the bottles ourselves but since we always drink the wine on our balcony, it makes no difference.

 

Recently we were on a cruise our of South America. To our surprise after going through security, checking in and getting our sea cards, we were directed into the next very large room. Interestingly they were selling wine and some hard liquor and we were allowed to buy whatever we wanted and take it to our cabin. What a surprise that was and there was no wine table to collect the corkage fee for the bottles we had brought with us. If we had known this we would not have bought the wine ahead of time and carried it.

[IECalCruiser]

We have not had a problem bringing wine on board with the new policy boarding in San Francisco or San Pedro. We just pay the corkage for the extra bottles, but we have always brought the bottles, up to 8 on longer cruises, in our carryon luggage. One time on a cruise out of San Pedro there was no table set up and we were directed to continue to the waiting area. We paid corkage in the DR when we brought some of the bottles for dinner. In Barcelona there was no wine table or corkage collected and wine was available for sale in a shop after security. Once again, we paid corkage on the bottles we brought to the DR.